bart maras

I lead projects across IKEA and external organisations to define digital strategy and integrate it into the business, with particular focus on IKEA external communication.

Current project: develop the IKEA digital visual identity and set up the IKEA digital design system with the purpose that all IKEA organisations around the world design and develop digital interactions consistently and efficiently.

Previous projects include:

develop the global social media approach for global IKEA organisations

define the strategic role of social media in the IKEA retail business

develop social media guidelines for IKEA marketing communications and IKEA co-workers using social media

support new IKEA markets establishing their social media presence.

IKEA Belgium Customer Support Centre. Business Support Manager04-2014 - 05-2016

I managed a team of 10 knowledge management specialists and system super users to:

gather information from all across the business and ensure all customer support co-workers knew how to access up-to-date information

maintain and develop customer support pages on IKEA.be

design, develop, and maintain local systems and provide super user support and training on global systems

train the trainers in store and keep reference material accessible and up to date

As part of the Global Web Team, I coordinated the communication with IKEA's 40+ web teams around the world who run the national IKEA.com websites. This meant securing that all teams received correct instructions and documentation, training and support, in order to work with the global IKEA.com platform in their market.

IKEA Belgium. Online Marketing12-2007 - 03-2012

I improved IKEA Belgium's online marketing strategically and operationally by finding better ways of working with: implementing global content on IKEA.be; local content and online advertising campaigns; SEA, SEO and analytics; integration with offline commercial activities. In this period I pioneered IKEA Belgium's social media marketing.